Philip N Cohen
KlingonHipster@philipncohen I haven’t heard of any such restrictions myself. That said, I would never disclose this information to the tenure applicant without a very good reason.
@KlingonHipster what if it's years later and everything went fine? Of course you could do it for a corrupt reason, but if not, not necessarily bad.
@philipncohen That’s probably not a big deal, I admit! I would still be worried about creating a scenario where your silence/refusal to answer such a question for someone else could be interpreted as a bad thing.
On reflection it’s more accurate for me to say I wouldn’t share information about the discussion of their application, good or bad, but I’m not concerned with people knowing I’m on the committee reviewing their application (since my institution makes this information public anyway).
Lukas Neville@philipncohen I don't know if it's an ethical reason, but what about this:
A positive, thoughtful tenure letter is of so much value to the recipient that it could feel like an unrepayable favour if they knew with certainty who wrote it.
There is something rare and positive about feeling immense but diffuse gratitude. You can't repay it, so all you can do is pay it forward.
There's my case for "don't tell". Strong opinion, weakly held.
What's the case for disclosing it?
Joe Gerteis@philipncohen I don’t think so. But it’s an open process in my department and so we know who the reviewers are. So I might be biased there.
Peter Catron@philipncohen My department is putting me up for early tenure. I just got a r&r and feel like one of the reviewers might be someone I suggested as a letter writer (I don't know if they are, obviously). Me saying look at this new piece of information may cause some problems, no?
@petercatron No I think it's fine. Good news is good. Just tell the committee chair or whoever is managing the files